Mechanism or Bust? Explanation in Psychology

Lawrence A. Shapiro

70 citations0/0 files storedThe British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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Philosophy and History of Science Philosophy and Theoretical Science Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology

Abstract

Proponents of mechanistic explanation have recently suggested that all explanation in the cognitive sciences is mechanistic, even functional explanation. This last claim is surprising, for functional explanation has traditionally been conceived as autonomous from the structural details that mechanistic explanations emphasize. I argue that functional explanation remains autonomous from mechanistic explanation, but not for reasons commonly associated with the phenomenon of multiple realizability. 1. Introduction2. Mechanistic Explanation: A Quick Primer3. Functional Explanation: An Example4. Autonomy as Lack of Constraint5. The Price of Autonomy6. Another Argument against Autonomy7. Conclusion: Autonomy and Multiple Realization

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References

2000Thinking about Mechanisms 1974Special sciences (or: The disunity of science as a working hypothesis)2007Explaining the Brain 2004Making Things Happen 1993Discovering complexity: decomposition and localization as strategies in scientific research 1998Mind in a Physical World 2005Explanation: a mechanist alternative 2002Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation

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2020Neurocognitive Mechanisms 2022The Nature of Physical Computation 2017Outlines of a theory of structural explanations 2017The Brain as an Input–Output Model of the World 2019Integrating computation into the mechanistic hierarchy in the cognitive and neural sciences 2019A tale of two explanatory styles in cognitive psychology 2019Mechanisms in psychology: The road towards unity?

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